
) comprising the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers-that is, numbers that can be divided only by 1, or by themselves. A modulated signal (‘beep,’ ‘beep-beep,’. It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligent beings.Planetary Exploration (University of Oregon Books, Eugene, Oregon, 1970), page 15.The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becoming a part of it.


There are, perhaps, places which are outside our universe. There are turbulent plasmas writhing with X- and gamma-rays and mighty stellar explosions. There are stars leaving the Milky Way, and immense gas clouds falling into it. There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition of bacteria. There are atomic nuclei a few miles across which rotate thirty times a second. I know of a sun the size of the Earth - and made of diamond. There is a place with four suns in the sky - red, white, blue, and yellow two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them.If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along. a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. That's a clear prescription for disaster. We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. Quotes The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. 1.10 The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006).

